“Enterprises’ share of Windows users dropped by nearly 4% during the year, but Microsoft’s monopoly remains undisputed: Some 95% of business users run Windows. While 2007 was a big year for Apple, with its enterprise share growing threefold to 4.2%, uptake remains limited to enthusiasts and small workgroups. IT departments crave standardization, and Macs pose too many problems for IT departments. The verdict for enterprise-focused vendors is clear: Unless your market is a niche business group, Windows is the only desktop you need support.”

The company says the BAM Racing #49 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car will be covered in a Microsoft Small Business theme for a race Sunday in Martinsville, Va. After that, a section of the car will be devoted to the Microsoft small-business theme. The company's small business partners will also be offered a $3,995 marketing package that includes placement of their logo in the Microsoft section of the car.

In an early morning blog post, John Richards, Microsoft's director of the Windows Live Platform, claimed "significant developments" that demonstrate the company's "commitment to data portability and giving users a choice of how to use and control their information." The real importance depends on one's definition of "significant."

Microsoft has reached API-exchange agreements with five social networks—Bebo, Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn and Tagged. That's hugely significant. Only Bebo and Facebook data exchange will be available today. That's not significant enough. MySpace isn't among the services, which is significant for its absence. The data exchange is limited, for now, to contact names and e-mail addresses. The purpose: to make easier the process of inviting friends from one service to be likewise on another. That's really insignificant, because the biggest data portability benefit goes to social networks.

Microsoft Corp. and Onkyo Corp. have signed a broad patent cross-licensing agreement that will enable significant technological innovation in high-quality home entertainment and enhance the overall user experience. The agreement covers a broad range of consumer products and allows greater mutual access to each partner’s respective patent portfolio. Although the contents of the agreement (including the specific financial terms) are confidential, the parties indicated that Onkyo will provide compensation to Microsoft.

The intellectual property (IP) collaboration between Microsoft and Onkyo (which recently acquired Japan-based PC manufacturer Sotec Co. Ltd.) will contribute to the production of high-quality hardware and versatile, reliable software technology. Consequently, this will further promote seamless integration and accelerate innovation in consumer audiovisual (A/V) electronics, personal computing, and home theater custom installation markets.

“When industry leaders collaborate through intellectual property licensing, we foster greater innovation that will benefit the overall IT ecosystem,” said Horacio Gutierrez, vice president of intellectual property and licensing at Microsoft. “We are proud of the quality of our global patent portfolio, and we look forward to continuing to work with Onkyo and other industry leaders to develop new and exciting technologies through our collaborative licensing program.”

Windows Rally Program Agreement

In an additional effort to foster mutual cooperation and to enhance the user experience, Onkyo has entered into the Microsoft Windows Rally program. The Windows Rally program provides Onkyo with access to Microsoft technology, streamlined licensing, and technical guidance for effortless, security-enhanced and reliable connectivity between devices and PCs. Onkyo’s advanced consumer A/V electronics will bring the state-of-the-art connectivity in the home network to customers.

“We’re very excited about this new collaboration with Microsoft,” said Nobuaki Okuda, executive officer of business development at Onkyo. “We think a mix of technology, communication and entertainment enables greater technology solutions. These agreements strengthen our collaborative relationship, which is of immense importance and will further help us address our customers’ needs.”

Google: January, 58.5 percent; February, 59.2 percent.
Yahoo: January, 22.2 percent; February, 21.6 percent.
Microsoft: January, 9.8 percent; February, 9.6 percent.
Ask Network: January, 4.5 percent; February, 4.6 percent.

Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corp. are partnering with academia to create two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC), aimed at accelerating developments in mainstream parallel computing, for consumers and businesses in desktop and mobile computing. The new research centers will be located at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Microsoft and Intel have committed a combined $20 million to the Berkeley and UIUC research centers over the next five years. An additional $8 million will come from UIUC, and UC Berkeley has applied for $7 million in funds from a state-supported program to match industry grants. Research will focus on advancing parallel programming applications, architecture and operating systems software. This is the first joint industry and university research alliance of this magnitude in the United States focused on mainstream parallel computing.

Parallel computing brings together advanced software and processors that have multiple cores or engines, which when combined can handle multiple instructions and tasks simultaneously. Although Microsoft, Intel and many others deliver hardware and software that is capable of handling dual- and quad-core-based PCs today, in the coming years computers are likely to have even more processors inside them.

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Massive Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corp. and a leading network for video game advertising, today announced an expansion and two-year extension of their agreement to offer dynamic in-game advertising for EA video games. The new global agreement provides unprecedented opportunities for advertisers to engage with EA’s highly coveted audience — especially males ages 18 to 34 — through its roster of blockbuster games on the Xbox 360™ platform and exclusive rights to a majority of EA’s premium PC products.

With over three years of experience in dynamically serving advertisements in video games, Massive is the definitive in-game advertising solution for advertisers around the world, including Ford Motor Co. in the U.S., Rogers in Canada, and Puma in Europe. Massive’s long-standing relationship with EA, publisher of many of the world’s most popular games, provides advertisers with extensive reach through EA’s portfolio of premium content video games. This agreement represents a critical point of differentiation for Massive as the in-game advertising medium continues its momentum as a more attractive and effective medium compared with traditional forms of established advertising.

With the latest agreement, EA will further expand the opportunities available to advertisers by extending the participation of current titles in the Massive network as well as incorporating additional, highly anticipated games over the course of the deal. The wide range of EA content that will be available in the Massive network includes the next two iterations of popular EA SPORTS™ franchises including Madden NFL football, NBA LIVE basketball, NASCAR ® racing and NHL® hockey.

Senior executives from Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. met Monday to discuss Microsoft's takeover offer for the Internet company, according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to acquire Rapt Inc., the leading provider of advertising yield management solutions for digital media publishers. Rapt’s technology, along with its information and advisory services offerings, will become key components of the Atlas Publisher Suite, part of Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group. With the inclusion of Rapt, the Atlas Publisher Suite allows Microsoft to provide its customers with integrated asset and inventory management, forecasting, yield and sales management, and ad delivery and operations.

Microsoft Corp. today announced its intended acquisition of Kidaro, a leading provider of desktop virtualization solutions for enterprises. In combining Kidaro’s virtualization technology with its suite of desktop management tools, known as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance, Microsoft will enable IT professionals to optimize their desktop infrastructure by providing management capabilities for Virtual PCs, streamlining deployments and easing application compatibility issues.

Aaron Greenberg, Xbox 360 group product manager, said the company continued to face shortages in February following strong holiday sales. He said Microsoft expects Xbox 360 supply to be improved by the time of the key "Grand Theft Auto 4" release in late April. Microsoft notes that the Xbox 360 is still the leader in overall spending on hardware, video games and accessories.

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - News), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has amended the Company’s bylaws to extend the deadline for nominating directors to Yahoo!’s board from March 14th to 10 days following the public announcement of the date for Yahoo!’s 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. As the Company has not yet announced the date of this year's annual meeting, the amendment will give stockholders who want to nominate one or more directors, including Microsoft Corporation, more time to do so. The amendment does not preclude any party from nominating one or more directors at any time prior to the new deadline.

Yahoo!'s board of directors remains committed to pursuing initiatives that maximize value for Yahoo!'s stockholders. To the extent that the extension of the nomination deadline has the effect of postponing the nomination of one or more directors by any party, it will allow Yahoo!’s board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest.

Microsoft will announce on March 4 that, with the help of Nokia, it has begun porting Silverlight to the S60s running the Symbian operating system. Microsoft’s press release says that Nolia’s S60 had more than 53 percent of worldwise market share for “converged device software” in the fourth quarter of lst year. Microsoft and Nokia also will port Silverlight to Nokia Series 40 and Internet tablet devices, Microsoft said.

Why Change?

Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do.

We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue. As stated above, we think it’s the better choice.

“IE8 has been significantly enhanced, and was designed with great support for current Internet standards. This is evidenced by the fact that even in its first beta, IE8 correctly renders the popular test known as ‘Acid2,’ which was created by the Web community to promote real-world interoperability,” said Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief software architect. “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behavior as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8.

“This is obviously a complex issue, with important considerations on both sides,” Ozzie said. “On one hand, there are literally billions of Web pages designed to render on previous browser versions, including many sites that are no longer actively managed. On the other hand, there is a concrete benefit to Web designers if all vendors give priority to interoperability around commonly accepted standards as they evolve. After weighing these very legitimate concerns, we have decided to give top priority to support for these new Web standards. In keeping with the commitment we made in our Interoperability Principles of being even more transparent in how we support standards in our products, we will work with content publishers to ensure they fully understand the steps we are taking and will encourage them to use this beta period to update their sites to transition to the more current Web standards supported by IE8.”

Microsoft Corp. today announced the public availability of Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta (http://workspace.officelive.com), the new Web-based extension of Microsoft Office that lets people access their documents online and share their work with others. Office Live Workspace was among the first entries in the new wave of online services in Microsoft’s software plus services vision previewed last fall.

Office Live Workspace is now available worldwide in English. People can sign up for free at http://workspace.officelive.com and will be granted immediate access to the service. Microsoft is also unveiling a number of new Office Live Workspace features, such as an activity panel, notifications, direct links and multifile upload.

“Today’s announcement moves us further down the path of bringing a software plus services experience to people at home, work and school,” said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “By combining the rich client experience of Microsoft Office with flexible, intuitive service offerings, we’re providing seamless computing experiences for our 500 million Office users worldwide.”

Microsoft has been in acquisition discussions with email startup Xobni, we’ve confirmed through multiple sources. The company, which launched at the TechCrunch40 conference last year, currently offers an outlook plugin for Windows users that significantly improves the desktop email experience (particularly search).

Monday from the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., will announce that the company will offer Microsoft Online Services to businesses of all sizes. This announcement marks a significant step for Microsoft toward expanding its software plus services strategy.

“The combination of software plus services gives customers advanced choice and flexibility in how they access and manage software,” Gates said. “With Microsoft Online Services, businesses can deploy software as a subscription service, from servers they manage on-site, or a combination of the two, depending on their specific needs. In the future, customers and partners should expect to see this kind of choice and flexibility for all of Microsoft’s software and server products.”

Today Microsoft also opened a limited beta trial of the new services; U.S.-based companies can register for the trial at http://www.mosbeta.com. The new services are scheduled to be generally available to businesses of all sizes in the second half of the year.

Based on the proven, business-class software available in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, the new services enable businesses to access e-mail, calendaring, contacts, shared workspaces, and webconferencing and videoconferencing over the Web. The new services are managed through a single Web-based interface, designed to meet the needs of IT